Capture of CSS TENNESSEE
5 AUGUST 1864
CAPTURE OF CSS TENNESSEE
By August 1864, the last remaining Confederate seaport not in Union hands was Mobile, Alabama. At 0530 this morning, VADM David G. Farragut’s Union squadron “damned the torpedoes” and forced their way past Fort Morgan into Mobile Bay. Each ship had to sidestep the vaunted Confederate ironclad CSS TENNESSEE waiting inside the Bay. She was formidable, the centerpiece of Mobile’s defenses, a 208-foot monster. The sloping sides of her casemate bore five inches of plate iron covering two feet of oak and were holed for six rifled cannon in broadside. But her most feared weapon was the iron-plated ram just under the waterline at her bows. Her captain was Confederate VADM Franklin Buchanan, a respected and experienced veteran of the pre-Civil War US Navy who had “gone South” in 1861 and had skippered CSS VIRGINIA in her famous battle against USS MONITOR in Hampton Roads. TENNESSEE’s armor rendered Union guns impotent, but her Achilles heel was her comparatively weak machinery that condemned her to a best speed of under six knots. At Farragut’s entry she sheltered under the guns of Fort Morgan, where all expected she would lie until the cover of night brought her forth again. But Buchanan was a realist. He eschewed the invincibility myth the citizens of Mobile ascribed to his vessel. About 0900 this morning, while daylight would provide better vision, he moved toward the Union squadron.
Farragut’s plan was to fight ram with ram–use his own ships to repeatedly crash the rebel into submission. The Union screw sloop MONOGAHELA was the first to reach TENNESSEE. She struck squarely but succeeded only in smashing her own bow. As she recoiled from the collision, two shells penetrated her berth deck doing terrible damage. The sloop LACKAWANNA struck head-on just aft of amidships with the same result as MONOGAHELA. As she spun abreast, each crew hurled musket shots, insults, holystones, and even a spittoon at each other through gun ports only 10 feet apart. HARTFORD struck a glancing blow then collided with LACKAWANNA. The monitor MANHATTAN scored the first Union success when one of her 440# bolts fired from 10 yards crashed through TENNESSEE’s casemate. USS CHICKASAW stood off the enemy’s stern, skillfully shooting away the rebel’s steering chains and jamming closed the shutters of her gunports. Buchanan’s smokestack was riddled, reducing the draft in his inadequate boilers, and with his steering and power cut, he recognized the inevitable. The specter of OSSIPPEE now bearing down at full speed brought out a white flag. OSSIPPEE veered off at the last second, her Acting ENS Charles E. Clark accepted a wounded Buchanan’s surrender. TENNESSEE was pressed into Union service for the duration of the Mobile campaign.
Watch for more “Today in Naval History” 11 AUG 24UCHANONU
CAPT James Bloom, Ret.
Department of the Navy, Naval History Division. Civil War Naval Chronology 1861-1865. Washington, DC: GPO, 1961, pp. IV-96-97.
Lewis, Charles Lee. David Glasgow Farragut: Our First Admiral. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1943, pp. 273-82.
Silverstone, Paul H. Warships of the Civil War Navies. Annapolis, MD: USNI Press, 1989, pp. 208-09.
Still, William N., Jr. Iron Afloat: The Story of the Confederate Armorclads. Columbia, SC: Univ. of South Carolina Press, 1985, pp. 209-10.
ADDITIONAL NOTES: TENNESSEE survived the war. She supported the successful Union attack on Fort Morgan on 23 August, then joined the Mississippi Squadron at New Orleans for the remainder of the war. She was sold for scrap in 1867. Franklin Buchanan was taken captive this day. Twice severely wounded during the Civil War, he survived to die peacefully at his home in Maryland in 1874. USS BUCHANAN (DD-131, DD-484) remembers the sailor honored for his service both in the US and Confederate navies.
LACKAWANNA, MONOGAHELA, and OSSIPPEE were wooden-hulled, full-rigged, steam-powered screw sloops constructed for the Union Navy in 1862. CHICKASAW and MANHATTAN were turreted monitors. The names of all reflect Secretary of the Navy Gideon Welles’ opinion that it most befitted and honored our warships to bear the names of Native American tribes.
ENS Charles Clark of OSSIPPEE would later earn undying fame as skipper of the battleship OREGON (BB-3) on her epic voyage around the Horn at the outset of the Spanish-American war.
